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Posted on: September 13, 2016

Roosevelt Man Pleads Guilty to First Degree Manslaughter Charges

MINEOLA, N.Y. – Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a Roosevelt man who fired into a crowd at a Freeport house party in December 2014, and killed his friend, pleaded guilty yesterday to manslaughter charges. Autrey Smith, 23, pleaded guilty before Acting Supreme Court Justice William O’Brien to manslaughter in the first degree (a B violent felony). The defendant is due back in court on October 27 for sentencing. Smith is expected to be sentenced to 25 years in prison. “Autrey Smith pulled out a semi-automatic handgun, fired indiscriminately into a crowd of two dozen people at a party and fled after he had shot and killed his close friend,” DA Singas said. “This defendant will now spend the next 25 years of his life behind bars for murdering an innocent young man. I hope that this plea will help Lyreek Crawley’s loved ones heal from this horrible loss.” DA Singas said that Smith and his friend, Lyreek Crawley, attended a house party on Colonial Avenue in Freeport on December 28, 2014. At approximately 1:05 a.m., Smith suddenly took out a gun and began firing indiscriminately at the 20 to 25 people attending the party. The defendant stopped firing when he struck Crawley in the head. Crawley was pronounced dead at the scene a few minutes later when ambulances arrived. Smith, who had recently moved from Roosevelt to Kentucky, fled the scene and went to a Cincinnati address for three days. The defendant returned to New York and surrendered to the Nassau County Police Department on January 1, 2015. Assistant District Attorney Donald Levin of DA Singas’ Major Offense Bureau is prosecuting the case. Smith is represented by Brian Carmody, Esq.